Bart the Fink
Encyclopedia
"Bart the Fink" is the fifteenth episode of The Simpsons
' seventh season
. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on February 11, 1996. In this episode, Bart
ruins Krusty the Clown's career by accidentally exposing Krusty as one of the biggest tax cheats in American history. Driven to despair, Krusty fakes a suicide in order to start life anew as a sailor; feeling guilty for what he did, Bart convinces Krusty to become a television clown again.
The episode was written by John Swartzwelder
and Bob Kushell
, and directed by Jim Reardon
. American actor Bob Newhart
guest starred in it as himself. The episode's title is a play on the 1991 film Barton Fink
. Since airing, the episode has received mostly positive reviews by television critics. It acquired a Nielsen rating
of 8.7, and was the fifth highest-rated show on the Fox network the week it aired.
attends a will reading. Each member of the family discovers they will receive $100 to do with as they like, but only after spending the night in a haunted house (which is surprisingly pleasant). Though Bart
wishes to buy a hundred tacos from the TacoMat and Lisa
to contribute to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
, Marge
has them open bank account
s at the Bank of Springfield. Bart is excited with his new checking account, and begins writing checks for his friends.
Bart attempts to get Krusty the Clown's autograph
, but Krusty is having a new sandwich named after him and has to leave. Just before he does, Bart slips a check for twenty-five cents into Krusty's pocket, figuring that he will receive an endorsed copy of it with his monthly bank statement. However, when Bart receives the check, it is endorsed with a stamp ("Cayman Islands
Off-Shore Holding Corporation
") instead of a signature; dismayed, Bart takes the check back to the bank so that they can force Krusty to sign it. A suspicious bank teller investigates, and five minutes later, Krusty is arrested for tax fraud.
The IRS takes control of Krusty's assets and his show (renaming it Herschel Krustofsky's Clown-Related Entertainment Show and turning Krusty Burger into IRS Burger, with meals named with tax-related terms and a six-to-eight-week-wait to the customers, who apparently must inform their income with every order as Homer asked Marge how much she lost on gambling), reducing his lifestyle to that of an average citizen. One evening, as the town watches, a depressed Krusty pilots his airplane into a mountainside. He is later pronounced dead.
A memorial service is held for Krusty at which Bob Newhart
offers condolences. While everyone assumes that Krusty is dead, Bart believes otherwise when he begins to see a Krusty look-alike all over town. With Lisa's help, he soon discovers that Krusty has gone into hiding under the disguise of Rory B. Bellows, a grizzled old longshore worker. With Krusty leaving on a boat heading for the ocean, they supposedly convince him to return to his former life. However, Krusty had insured the life of his pseudonym and rigged his boat with explosives; returning to shore with Bart and Lisa, "Bellows"'s boat explodes, allowing Krusty to collect the insurance cash and end his tax woes.
"Bart the Fink" was written by John Swartzwelder
, but Bob Kushell
came up with the idea for it. The episode was based on the "big tax problems" that American country singer
Willie Nelson
had at the time. The idea of Krusty faking his own death was an idea the production team had wanted to do for a long time, and it was inspired by the rumored fake death of American actor Andy Kaufman
. Bill Oakley
and Josh Weinstein
, the show runner
s of The Simpsons' seventh and eighth season, thought the beginning of the episode in which the family spends the night in a haunted house would have been "the cruddiest beginning of any cruddy thing", if they had not added the twist that the family did not encounter any ghosts in the house and had their "best night's sleep ever". The twist was Oakley's idea and he thought it "worked out great".
The episode was directed by Jim Reardon
. Consultant David Mirkin
suggested that the animators should add "some funny things" to the episode to "spice it up", such as the gorilla
suit that one of the bank employees wear. After the audio recording of the script by the Simpsons cast, the episode ended up too long. Weinstein said one of the reasons for it was that Krusty talks very slowly, which drags out the time. They were only allowed to send twenty minutes worth of audio to Film Roman
for them to animate, but the audio track for the episode was twenty-six minutes long. American actor Bob Newhart
guest starred in the episode as himself. Oakley said Newhart also talked very slowly and they had to cut out more than half of his recorded lines. Many of the writers were big fans of Newhart and everybody wanted to see him record his lines. Oakley and Weinstein decided to shut down production so that the whole writing staff could go to the recording studio. The episode was recorded in a big room so everyone had to be really quiet. It took Newhart two and a half minutes to record his first take, and, as no one was allowed to laugh during that time, there was an "explosion" of laughter in the room when he finished. Parts of Phil Hartman
's appearance as Troy McClure
were also cut from the episode due to time limits.
. After losing his show and money, Krusty takes the bus home. An advert on the bus reads "Are you missing Mad About You
right now? NBC Must See TV
Sundays at 8 p.m." Krusty's airplane, "I'm-on-a-rolla-Gay", that he uses to stage his death is a spoof of the Enola Gay
B-29 airplane that dropped the atomic bomb on the Japanese city Hiroshima
in World War II
. Krusty's illegal Cayman-Islands "accountant" is modeled on the actor Sydney Greenstreet
, particularly on his role in the film Casablanca
, considering his line "Oh, it's too hot today!" Swartzwelder is seen attending Krusty's funeral, who appears with a Kermit the Frog
puppet on his hand.
of 8.7. The episode was the fifth highest-rated show on the Fox network that week, following Melrose Place, The X-Files
, Beverly Hills, 90210
, and Married... With Children
.
"Bart the Fink" received generally positive reviews from television critics. DVD Movie Guide's Colin Jacobson called the episode a "winner" and praised it for the "one hundred tacos for $100" joke. Jennifer Malkowski of DVD Verdict said that the best part of the episode is when Homer comforts Bart after Krusty's death by assuring him that he, too, could wake up dead tomorrow. In the book I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Unofficial "Simpsons" Guide by Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood, they comment that "Bart the Fink" is "very fast and very good, with plenty of gags and effective set pieces. Bob Newhart's eulogy to Krusty is especially memorable." The authors of Media, home, and family, Stewart Hoover, Lynn Schofield Clark
, and Diane Alters wrote that "Krusty ultimately expertly proves the truth about the IRS: ruining the financial and emotional life of many [people]." William Irwin, author of The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D'oh! of Homer also praised the use of IRS in "Bart the Fink" to convey the message that "none of us can escape the unavoidable taxes". In addition, Chris Turner claims "Bart the Fink" offers a "pointed answer to the question of why such a manifestly miserable world of phonies and cheats would be so enticing to many."
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
The Simpsons (season 7)
The Simpsons seventh season originally aired on the Fox network between September 17, 1995 and May 19, 1996. The show runners for the seventh production season were Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein who would executive produce 21 episodes this season. David Mirkin executive produced the remaining...
. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on February 11, 1996. In this episode, Bart
Bart Simpson
Bartholomew JoJo "Bart" Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons and part of the Simpson family. He is voiced by actress Nancy Cartwright and first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987...
ruins Krusty the Clown's career by accidentally exposing Krusty as one of the biggest tax cheats in American history. Driven to despair, Krusty fakes a suicide in order to start life anew as a sailor; feeling guilty for what he did, Bart convinces Krusty to become a television clown again.
The episode was written by John Swartzwelder
John Swartzwelder
John Swartzwelder is an American comedy writer and novelist, best known for his work on the animated television series The Simpsons, as well as a number of novels. He is credited with writing the largest number of Simpsons episodes by a large margin...
and Bob Kushell
Bob Kushell
Bob Kushell is a writer and producer for The Simpsons. As of December 2008, Kushell began hosting his own talk show, Anytime with Bob Kushell, on Crackle.-Writing credits:Samantha WhoThe VirginThe Break UpThe AffairThe Park...
, and directed by Jim Reardon
Jim Reardon
Jim Reardon is an animation director and storyboard consultant, best known for his work on the animated TV series The Simpsons. He has directed over 30 episodes of the series, and was credited as a supervising director for seasons 9 through 15...
. American actor Bob Newhart
Bob Newhart
George Robert Newhart , known professionally as Bob Newhart, is an American stand-up comedian and actor. Noted for his deadpan and slightly stammering delivery, Newhart came to prominence in the 1960s when his album of comedic monologues The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart was a worldwide...
guest starred in it as himself. The episode's title is a play on the 1991 film Barton Fink
Barton Fink
Barton Fink is a 1991 American film, written, directed, and produced by the Coen brothers. Set in 1941, it stars John Turturro in the title role as a young New York City playwright who is hired to write scripts for a movie studio in Hollywood, and John Goodman as Charlie, the insurance salesman who...
. Since airing, the episode has received mostly positive reviews by television critics. It acquired a Nielsen rating
Nielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
of 8.7, and was the fifth highest-rated show on the Fox network the week it aired.
Plot
After the death of great aunt Hortense, the Simpson familySimpson family
The Simpson family is a family of fictional characters featured in the animated television series The Simpsons. The Simpsons are a nuclear family consisting of the married couple Homer and Marge and their three children Bart, Lisa and Maggie. They live at 742 Evergreen Terrace in the fictional town...
attends a will reading. Each member of the family discovers they will receive $100 to do with as they like, but only after spending the night in a haunted house (which is surprisingly pleasant). Though Bart
Bart Simpson
Bartholomew JoJo "Bart" Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons and part of the Simpson family. He is voiced by actress Nancy Cartwright and first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987...
wishes to buy a hundred tacos from the TacoMat and Lisa
Lisa Simpson
Lisa Marie Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons. She is the middle child of the Simpson family. Voiced by Yeardley Smith, Lisa first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987. Cartoonist Matt Groening...
to contribute to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
Corporation for Public Broadcasting
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is a non-profit corporation created by an act of the United States Congress, funded by the United States’ federal government to promote public broadcasting...
, Marge
Marge Simpson
Marjorie "Marge" Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons and part of the eponymous family. She is voiced by actress Julie Kavner and first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987...
has them open bank account
Bank account
A Bank account is a financial account recording the financial transactions between the customer and the bank and the resulting financial position of the customer with the bank .-Account types:...
s at the Bank of Springfield. Bart is excited with his new checking account, and begins writing checks for his friends.
Bart attempts to get Krusty the Clown's autograph
Autograph
An autograph is a document transcribed entirely in the handwriting of its author, as opposed to a typeset document or one written by an amanuensis or a copyist; the meaning overlaps with that of the word holograph.Autograph also refers to a person's artistic signature...
, but Krusty is having a new sandwich named after him and has to leave. Just before he does, Bart slips a check for twenty-five cents into Krusty's pocket, figuring that he will receive an endorsed copy of it with his monthly bank statement. However, when Bart receives the check, it is endorsed with a stamp ("Cayman Islands
Cayman Islands
The Cayman Islands is a British Overseas Territory and overseas territory of the European Union located in the western Caribbean Sea. The territory comprises the three islands of Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac, and Little Cayman, located south of Cuba and northwest of Jamaica...
Off-Shore Holding Corporation
Offshore company
The term offshore company is ambiguous. It may refer to either:# A company which is incorporated outside the jurisdiction of its primary operations regardless of whether that jurisdiction is an offshore financial centre i.e...
") instead of a signature; dismayed, Bart takes the check back to the bank so that they can force Krusty to sign it. A suspicious bank teller investigates, and five minutes later, Krusty is arrested for tax fraud.
The IRS takes control of Krusty's assets and his show (renaming it Herschel Krustofsky's Clown-Related Entertainment Show and turning Krusty Burger into IRS Burger, with meals named with tax-related terms and a six-to-eight-week-wait to the customers, who apparently must inform their income with every order as Homer asked Marge how much she lost on gambling), reducing his lifestyle to that of an average citizen. One evening, as the town watches, a depressed Krusty pilots his airplane into a mountainside. He is later pronounced dead.
A memorial service is held for Krusty at which Bob Newhart
Bob Newhart
George Robert Newhart , known professionally as Bob Newhart, is an American stand-up comedian and actor. Noted for his deadpan and slightly stammering delivery, Newhart came to prominence in the 1960s when his album of comedic monologues The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart was a worldwide...
offers condolences. While everyone assumes that Krusty is dead, Bart believes otherwise when he begins to see a Krusty look-alike all over town. With Lisa's help, he soon discovers that Krusty has gone into hiding under the disguise of Rory B. Bellows, a grizzled old longshore worker. With Krusty leaving on a boat heading for the ocean, they supposedly convince him to return to his former life. However, Krusty had insured the life of his pseudonym and rigged his boat with explosives; returning to shore with Bart and Lisa, "Bellows"'s boat explodes, allowing Krusty to collect the insurance cash and end his tax woes.
Production
John Swartzwelder
John Swartzwelder is an American comedy writer and novelist, best known for his work on the animated television series The Simpsons, as well as a number of novels. He is credited with writing the largest number of Simpsons episodes by a large margin...
, but Bob Kushell
Bob Kushell
Bob Kushell is a writer and producer for The Simpsons. As of December 2008, Kushell began hosting his own talk show, Anytime with Bob Kushell, on Crackle.-Writing credits:Samantha WhoThe VirginThe Break UpThe AffairThe Park...
came up with the idea for it. The episode was based on the "big tax problems" that American country singer
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
Willie Nelson
Willie Nelson
Willie Hugh Nelson is an American country music singer-songwriter, as well as an author, poet, actor, and activist. The critical success of the album Shotgun Willie , combined with the critical and commercial success of Red Headed Stranger and Stardust , made Nelson one of the most recognized...
had at the time. The idea of Krusty faking his own death was an idea the production team had wanted to do for a long time, and it was inspired by the rumored fake death of American actor Andy Kaufman
Andy Kaufman
Andrew Geoffrey "Andy" Kaufman was an American entertainer, actor and performance artist. While often referred to as a comedian, Kaufman did not consider himself one...
. Bill Oakley
Bill Oakley
Bill Oakley is an American television writer and producer, known for his work on the animated comedy series The Simpsons. Oakley and Josh Weinstein became best friends and writing partners at high school; Oakley then attended Harvard University and was Vice President of the Harvard Lampoon...
and Josh Weinstein
Josh Weinstein
Josh Weinstein is an American television writer and producer, known for his work on the animated comedy series The Simpsons. Weinstein and Bill Oakley became best friends and writing partners at St. Albans High School; Weinstein then attended Stanford University and was editor-in-chief of the...
, the show runner
Show runner
Showrunner is a term of art originating in the United States and Canadian television industry referring to the person who is responsible for the day-to-day operation of a television seriesalthough such persons generally are credited as an executive producer...
s of The Simpsons
The episode was directed by Jim Reardon
Jim Reardon
Jim Reardon is an animation director and storyboard consultant, best known for his work on the animated TV series The Simpsons. He has directed over 30 episodes of the series, and was credited as a supervising director for seasons 9 through 15...
. Consultant David Mirkin
David Mirkin
David Mirkin is an American feature film and television director, writer and producer. Mirkin grew up in Philadelphia and intended to become an electrical engineer, but abandoned this career path in favor of studying film at Loyola Marymount University. After graduating, he became a stand-up...
suggested that the animators should add "some funny things" to the episode to "spice it up", such as the gorilla
Gorilla
Gorillas are the largest extant species of primates. They are ground-dwelling, predominantly herbivorous apes that inhabit the forests of central Africa. Gorillas are divided into two species and either four or five subspecies...
suit that one of the bank employees wear. After the audio recording of the script by the Simpsons cast, the episode ended up too long. Weinstein said one of the reasons for it was that Krusty talks very slowly, which drags out the time. They were only allowed to send twenty minutes worth of audio to Film Roman
Film Roman
Film Roman is an animation studio founded by Phil Roman, best known for producing the animation for The Simpsons, King of the Hill for 20th Century Fox, as well as the Garfield and Peanuts animated TV specials....
for them to animate, but the audio track for the episode was twenty-six minutes long. American actor Bob Newhart
Bob Newhart
George Robert Newhart , known professionally as Bob Newhart, is an American stand-up comedian and actor. Noted for his deadpan and slightly stammering delivery, Newhart came to prominence in the 1960s when his album of comedic monologues The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart was a worldwide...
guest starred in the episode as himself. Oakley said Newhart also talked very slowly and they had to cut out more than half of his recorded lines. Many of the writers were big fans of Newhart and everybody wanted to see him record his lines. Oakley and Weinstein decided to shut down production so that the whole writing staff could go to the recording studio. The episode was recorded in a big room so everyone had to be really quiet. It took Newhart two and a half minutes to record his first take, and, as no one was allowed to laugh during that time, there was an "explosion" of laughter in the room when he finished. Parts of Phil Hartman
Phil Hartman
Philip Edward "Phil" Hartman was a Canadian-American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and graphic artist. Born in Brantford, Ontario, Hartman and his family moved to the United States when he was 10...
's appearance as Troy McClure
Troy McClure
Troy McClure is a fictional character in the American animated sitcom The Simpsons. He was voiced by Phil Hartman and first appears in the second season episode "Homer vs. Lisa and the 8th Commandment". McClure is a washed-up actor, usually shown doing low-level work, such as hosting infomercials...
were also cut from the episode due to time limits.
Cultural references
The episode's title is a play on the 1991 film Barton FinkBarton Fink
Barton Fink is a 1991 American film, written, directed, and produced by the Coen brothers. Set in 1941, it stars John Turturro in the title role as a young New York City playwright who is hired to write scripts for a movie studio in Hollywood, and John Goodman as Charlie, the insurance salesman who...
. After losing his show and money, Krusty takes the bus home. An advert on the bus reads "Are you missing Mad About You
Mad About You
Mad About You is an American sitcom that aired on NBC from September 23, 1992 to May 24, 1999. The show starred Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt as a newly married couple in New York City. Reiser played Paul Buchman, a documentary film maker. Hunt played Jamie Stemple Buchman, a public relations specialist...
right now? NBC Must See TV
Must See TV
"Must See TV" is an advertising slogan used by the NBC television network to brand its prime time blocks of sitcoms during the 1990s, and most often applied to the network's Thursday night lineup, which featured such popular sitcoms as The Cosby Show, Family Ties, Cheers, Night Court, A Different...
Sundays at 8 p.m." Krusty's airplane, "I'm-on-a-rolla-Gay", that he uses to stage his death is a spoof of the Enola Gay
Enola Gay
Enola Gay is a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, named after Enola Gay Tibbets, mother of the pilot, then-Colonel Paul Tibbets. On August 6, 1945, during the final stages of World War II, it became the first aircraft to drop an atomic bomb as a weapon of war...
B-29 airplane that dropped the atomic bomb on the Japanese city Hiroshima
Hiroshima
is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture, and the largest city in the Chūgoku region of western Honshu, the largest island of Japan. It became best known as the first city in history to be destroyed by a nuclear weapon when the United States Army Air Forces dropped an atomic bomb on it at 8:15 A.M...
in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Krusty's illegal Cayman-Islands "accountant" is modeled on the actor Sydney Greenstreet
Sydney Greenstreet
Sydney Hughes Greenstreet was an English actor. He is best known for his Warner Bros. films with Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre, which include The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca .-Biography:...
, particularly on his role in the film Casablanca
Casablanca (film)
Casablanca is a 1942 American romantic drama film directed by Michael Curtiz, starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid, and featuring Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Dooley Wilson. Set during World War II, it focuses on a man torn between, in...
, considering his line "Oh, it's too hot today!" Swartzwelder is seen attending Krusty's funeral, who appears with a Kermit the Frog
Kermit the Frog
Kermit the Frog is puppeteer Jim Henson's most famous Muppet creation, first introduced in 1955. He is the protagonist of many Muppet projects, most notably as the host of The Muppet Show, and has appeared in various sketches on Sesame Street, in commercials and in public service announcements over...
puppet on his hand.
Reception
In its original American broadcast, "Bart the Fink" finished sixty-fourth in the ratings for the week of February 5–11, 1996, with a Nielsen ratingNielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
of 8.7. The episode was the fifth highest-rated show on the Fox network that week, following Melrose Place, The X-Files
The X-Files
The X-Files is an American science fiction television series and a part of The X-Files franchise, created by screenwriter Chris Carter. The program originally aired from to . The show was a hit for the Fox network, and its characters and slogans became popular culture touchstones in the 1990s...
, Beverly Hills, 90210
Beverly Hills, 90210
Beverly Hills, 90210 is an American drama series that originally aired from October 4, 1990 to May 17, 2000 on Fox and was produced by Spelling Television in the United States, and subsequently on various networks around the world. It is the first series in the Beverly Hills, 90210 franchise...
, and Married... With Children
Married... with Children
Married... with Children is an American surrealistic sitcom that aired for 11 seasons that featured a dysfunctional family living in Chicago, Illinois. The show, notable for being the first prime time television series to air on Fox, ran from April 5, 1987, to June 9, 1997. The series was created...
.
"Bart the Fink" received generally positive reviews from television critics. DVD Movie Guide's Colin Jacobson called the episode a "winner" and praised it for the "one hundred tacos for $100" joke. Jennifer Malkowski of DVD Verdict said that the best part of the episode is when Homer comforts Bart after Krusty's death by assuring him that he, too, could wake up dead tomorrow. In the book I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Unofficial "Simpsons" Guide by Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood, they comment that "Bart the Fink" is "very fast and very good, with plenty of gags and effective set pieces. Bob Newhart's eulogy to Krusty is especially memorable." The authors of Media, home, and family, Stewart Hoover, Lynn Schofield Clark
Lynn Schofield Clark
Lynn Schofield Clark, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in Media, Film, and Journalism Studies at the University of Denver. She is a prize-winning author of several books and articles on media in the lives of U.S. young people and their families...
, and Diane Alters wrote that "Krusty ultimately expertly proves the truth about the IRS: ruining the financial and emotional life of many [people]." William Irwin, author of The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D'oh! of Homer also praised the use of IRS in "Bart the Fink" to convey the message that "none of us can escape the unavoidable taxes". In addition, Chris Turner claims "Bart the Fink" offers a "pointed answer to the question of why such a manifestly miserable world of phonies and cheats would be so enticing to many."
External links
- "Bart the Fink" at The Simpsons.com